On Monday, Alex Ovechkin said he was ready to spend the NHL lockout playing in the KHL. By Wednesday, he hadn't just chosen to sign with Dynamo Moscow—he was on the ice in full uniform.

Ovechkin, a few days after turning 27, skated with Dynamo after agreeing on a contract with the team that, according to Sovietsky Sport, paid him more than the 65 percent of his NHL salary typically allowed by the KHL. Ovechkin was set to make $9 million with the Washington Capitals before NHL owners locked out the NHLPA on Sept. 15.

"If the league continues to insist on their (demands), then it will take a full year," Ovechkin told Sovietsky Sport on Monday according to a translation by Yahoo! Sports. "That's because we are not going to cave in. Then I will spend the entire season in the KHL. It's an absolute reality."

And whether it was honesty, posturing for the players' cause or throwing a bone to his hometown fans, he'd dug in on that stance by Wednesday.

"If our salaries get slashed, I'll have to think about whether to return to NHL," he said, according to a translation by Slava Malamud of Sport-Express.

The KHL has an agreement in place with the NHL to honor existing contracts, but that's far from permanent and has been challenged in the past.

Ovechkin chose Dynamo, the team he played for until 2005, over CSKA Moscow. They're responsible for paying the insurance premium on Ovechkin's contract which, according to multiple reports, is about $100,000 a month.

There had been some confusion over which Moscow-based team would wind up with him on the roster. Dynamo's president initially wasn't interested, though the GM was, and Ovechkin's old teammate, Sergei Federov, runs CSKA Moscow. Regardless, he wound up with the franchise that, according to KHL president Alexander Medvedev, had a "moral right" to sign him. Interestingly enough, the two teams play on Jan. 19 and Jan. 20 at Brooklyn's Barclays Center.

The former MVP might be the highest-profile player ready to go in the KHL, but not by much; Evgeni Malkin, the 2012 Hart Trophy winner and scoring champion, will play his first game for Metallurg Magnitogorsk, also his hometown team, on Wednesday night.